


too good to be true (gold plated)

by laikaspeaks



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, F/F, Gender or Sex Swap, asuna is approximately two hundred extracurriculars in a trenchcoat, f!kirito, kirito is an awkward nerd, they're in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2018-12-30 01:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laikaspeaks/pseuds/laikaspeaks
Summary: From the outside Asuna is a golden girl in every sense of the term: intelligent, driven and capable. Kirito has turned being a disappointment into an art form, an equally brilliant mind coasting through a world that couldn't catch her interest. By clashing against Aincrad's dangers - and each other - they discover their true mettle. It isn’t always easy becoming yourself, but they’ll love each other anyway.





	1. Asuna

Kirito was beginning to regret setting up camp in a safe zone instead of heading back to town.

The tips of Asuna's fingers brushed in drowsy circles over over Kirito's wrist, calluses dragging over sensitive skin, drawing out a shiver. _"Ten years of violin,"_ Asuna explained once, with a tight, reflexive smile. Violin, gymnastics, fencing, cooking, advanced pre-med classes, and top tier performance in all of it - when did she have time to _sleep_ before this?

Asuna shifted closer to her with a sigh, and Kirito could only scream internally. It was bad enough that the other girl leaned on her shoulder at some point, filling Kirito's senses with the smell of floral shampoo.

When Kirito first entered the game she'd somehow expected her senses to be dulled, less real. During the beta her expectations proved true. Unfortunately once the game locked down, both pain and pleasure didn’t just become _equal_ to the outside world. Sensation was amplified, racing along their nerves with the speed of thought. It didn't help that Asuna was casual in her affection in a way Kirito had never experienced in her life before this one. Those fingertips dragged over her pulse again, it was ticklish and pleasant, it made her heart race.

She wasn't sure how she felt about it.

"How did they even _get_ these details?" Asuna broke the silence, suddenly awake again now that her interest was piqued. She gripped Kirito's hand in her own and turned it over, examining a it critically. Asuna's hands were long and narrow, with jagged, close-bitten nails that Kirito hadn't noticed until now; her own were coarse and broad, with a subtly curved index finger from a bad break that never healed quite right.

"It was in the license agreement." Kirito said, patiently ignoring Asuna lacing their fingers together, "They requested 'permission to download files from your nearest 3DTailor facility', and you couldn't log in until you got scanned, remember?"

"Really?" Asuna's hands stilled.

"You didn't read the agreement, did you?"

"...no.”

"Of course you didn't." That was so Asuna - reading all the guides for strategy, builds and exploits, and not bothering with anything else. It still made Kirito blush to remember how Asuna had turned to her with blatant surprise the first time they sat down and talked properly. _”You’re that Kirito? You’re the beta tester that wrote that guide to speed-based builds?”_

She really hadn’t expected that it would lead to… well, _this._ Whatever this was, anyway. It felt like something.

“Did you get a good feel for the monsters in that section we opened up?” Trust Asuna to be thinking when she was supposed to be resting.

“You’re supposed to be trying to sleep.” Kirito scolded, nudging Asuna with her elbow. “What am I going to do if you give out on me? Will you take responsibility if I have to carry you back to town?”

“I won’t.” The other girl looked up at Kirito with magnetic eyes, transformed by the firelight into a silhouette of golden highlights and deep shadows. It was electric where they touched - Kirito was sure her hair should be standing on end. In that moment Asuna was something beautiful, powerful and strange.

Then she grinned sheepishly, and the moment passed. _"I know, I know,_ but I can’t help it.”

“I’m getting the attack pattern down,” Kirito said finally, conceding the point without argument. In all likelihood Asuna wouldn’t be able to relax until they talked it out, “There’s a solid ten second cooldown between their special and physical attacks, and some mapping errors that we could exploit. The spawns are mostly low-level mobs. The vanguard could push through.”

Asuna frowned, already chewing at her thumbnail absently. Her eyes were fixed on the fire, but her mind was tracing out the narrow, winding tunnels of the dungeon. “The corridors are too narrow for a full assault. I wouldn’t feel good leading my people in there.”

 _My people._ That was the fundamental difference between them, Kirito supposed. It was what made her a leader where Kirito was not. She let the burden settle on her shoulders so easily, as if the weight belonged there.

“We have plenty of time to complete another sweep,” she found herself saying, knowing in a guilty corner of her heart it was to keep Asuna scouting with her instead of leading the vanguard, “Another day should be enough.”

It wouldn’t be. It never was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asuna and Kirito weren't allowed to have personalities because one is waifu bait and the other is a power fantasy, but I'm totally in love with the CONCEPT of the show even if the writing is shit. So this is me playing around with character stuff. And also making it gay, cause one has to maintain The Brand. Also I'll be honest, I was listening to The Last of the Real Ones by Fall Out Boy on repeat while I was writing this. Just in case the title wasn't an indication.


	2. Kirito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asuna doesn't know how to deal with a problem she can't solve on her own; Kirito never met a problem she couldn't ignore. Between the two of them they'll work something out.

In those first months all that was left to Asuna was the endless grind: fight until she couldn’t move, down a stamina potion, get up again. Rinse and repeat until her hands shook and her vision blurred. As she gained levels she started pouring her gold into weapons and experience boost items, and her growth exploded.

That dedication made her a rising star in her guild. She was fast and only getting faster. Fast enough that anyone who didn’t know her called her “Lightning”, with a quick enough temper to be called “bitch” by those who did. She was so angry all the time. So tired all the time. Never able to escape from either.

No matter how far she ran there was no escape.

When Asuna first met Kirito she hadn’t slept properly for nearly a week. The guild had gathered together dozens of sub-teams - semi-independent and loyal mostly to themselves - to defeat a field boss. She was technically there as a ranking officer, but in practice it mostly meant keeping the peace between the various team leaders. Between that and recon, she was torn between a hundred different directives that needed her personal attention.

If she could strangle every one of them with her bare hands, the game would be vastly improved.

Which was why when she saw another player snoring away in the grass, she almost felt her spirit physically ascend from her body. She recognized the girl in passing from her time as a solo player - Kirito, she thought?

“What are you doing?”

She looked up at Asuna blearily, “sleeping,” she said before eyes slid closed again.

“I can see that you are doing absolutely nothing to get us out of here.”

Kirito didn’t even open her eyes this time. “So? It’s not like I _have_ to suffer.”

Asuna was left all but vibrating in place, spoiling for a duel and unwilling to kick the girl awake to get it. She wasn’t quite that far gone yet.

“What. Do. You. Mean. By. That.”

There. A civil question. No one could complain about her manners.

“The sun is warm,” Kirito didn’t open her eyes, her voice a drowsy mumble, “It’s such a nice day I just want to take a nap. Maybe go to the tavern for some stew and watch the sun go down.”

“Riveting.” Asuna didn’t used to be so damn sarcastic but here she was. “Do you plan on being trapped here your whole life? Or are you just leaving it to the rest of us to save you?”

Kirito opened her eyes again, letting out the most put-upon sigh Asuna ever heard in her life, and up until a few months ago she lived with her mother. Kirito’s eyes raked Asuna up and down with clear, cold judgement. “I’m living here right now, there’s no point in worrying about what I can’t change. Maybe you should take a nap too. You look like something chewed you up and spat you out.”

Those dark eyes rattled something inside Asuna. Like something clawing at her ribs to get out.

The next moment she was laying flat on her back on the ground, and she couldn't breathe. It took her brain a moment to catch up: She reached down to yank the girl up, and Kirito grabbed her hand and yanked her down face-first into the dirt faster than she could react. 

“Stop trying to fight me, geeze. I just wanna get some sleep.”

[Would you like to report an assault?]

Asuna rolled over with a groan. The prompt floated mockingly in front of her eyes, glinting on the transparent menu box in the afternoon sunlight.

[No]

Later she wished she could say it was a conscious choice to lay there and feel the afternoon sun and listen to the birds. The reality wasn’t so sweet. Physical exhaustion could be held at bay with potions, but mental exhaustion was as potent. It hit her all at once. The world dulled down to a buzz against her senses, conciousness slipping through her fingers like sunlight.

When she opened her eyes again it was almost dark.

“Oh, you’re awake.” The setting sun outlined Kirito’s silhouette in light, throwing her in sharp, simplistic contrast to the riot of carmine and plum and goldenrod streaking the darkening sky. Kirito smiled and tilted her head curiously, her black hair pouring over her shoulder with the motion. “Did you sleep well?”

Asuna wished she were a painter or a poet with such violence that it startled her upright. Her face burned under her hands. “Yes! Yes, fine.”

In retrospect that was the first time that she felt Aincrad’s breeze on her face, the first time she felt the grass prickling the back of her legs and the crickets calling from the underbrush. It was the first time her pounding heart wasn’t from fear. Not of death at any rate. She felt almost human for the first time in days.

Kirito leaned down and offered her hand, which Asuna accepted in a daze. Once Asuna was upright Kirito shuffled in place, folding her arms behind her head with transparent nervousness. Asuna wouldn’t have taken her for the shy type. 

“...my treat, for throwing you down like that.”

“What? I didn’t catch that.”

Kirito flushed. “Would you like to go to get - get eat - would you like to eat with me? There’s a cafe here that serves really good sweets, if you… uhhh, if you like that kind of thing.”

“Not likely.” Asuna realized her mistake when Kirito’s smile wavered as if she weren’t sure what expression to make, and hurried to add: “I should be paying for you. I was the one picking a fight.”

Kirito’s grin was suspiciously close to a smirk. “So you admit it?”

“At least I don’t eat candy for dinner.”

“I don’t always!”

Somehow they ended up bickering all the way back to the inn, and for a little while she forgot to fight it. For a moment Aincrad was real.


End file.
